Oskar Kumpu competed for the sports club
Helsinki Jyry, winning the Greco-Roman light heavyweight Finnish Championship in 1917. In the 1912 Summer Olympics, Kumpu lost his first round match against the Italian
Oreste Arpè. As the Finnish Civil War broke out in January 1918, Kumpu joined the
Helsinki Red Guard elite unit which was composed of Jyry athletes. After the Red defeat, Kumpu fled to Soviet Russia, where he finished a course in the
Petrograd Red Officer School. In the
Russian Civil War, Kumpu fought against the Finnish
Whites in
East Karelia. In January 1922, he took part in the famous
Battle of Kimasozero where the Red Army battalion, led by the legendary Finnish officer
Toivo Antikainen, beat the Whites and pushed them back to Finland. Later in the 1920s, Kumpu continued his wrestling career under the instruction of the Russian champion
Ivan Poddubny, but without great success. He then rejoined the Red Army and was placed at the Military Commissariat of the
Olonetsky District in 1933. Kumpu was drowned while swimming in the
Olonka River in June 1935. ==References==